1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the field of household appliances, and in particular to laundry washing and washing/drying appliances like laundry washers and washers/dryers. Specifically, the present invention relates to a household appliance designed for wall mounting.
2. Overview of the Related Art
Household appliances designed for wall mounting are known in the art. This kind of installation is useful in those situations where space is so limited that there is no room for accommodating a floor-standing appliance (either of standard size or of small size, designed with a reduced load capacity, e.g., 1.5-2 kg of cotton load, for example targeted to people living as singles), or for installation in hotel rooms, or aboard ships.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,868,998 discloses a wall-mounted tumble dryer. Other examples of wall-mounted garment dryer are provided in U.S. Pat. No. 5,568,691.
Conventionally, the household appliance is mounted to the wall by means of brackets, attached to the rear side of the appliance external cabinet, and that engage counter-brackets attached to the wall by means of screw anchors.
The Applicant has observed that, in general, a problem encountered in mounting to a wall household appliances having a rotating drum for loading items to be treated, like laundry washers and washers/dryers, is represented by the vibrations that inevitably are generated when the drum rotates, for washing or drying the items under treatment; the problem is especially felt in laundry washers and washers/dryers, because in the spinning phase of the washing cycle the rotational speed of the drum needs to be relatively high for efficiently removing water from the wet items. Such vibrations, that in floor-standing appliances are transmitted to the cabinet and then to the floor, in a wall-mounted appliance are instead transmitted to the wall, producing undesired noise at least for the neighbours, and, in time, they may even compromise the fixation of the appliance to the wall, and possibly damage the wall structure itself. In order to keep vibrations low, the load capacity of the appliance or/and the rotational speed of the drum should be kept low, but this undesirably limits the performance of the appliances and their marketability.